There’s an age-old argument that Yahoo Yahoo boys are just information security professionals waiting to be harvested.

The argument: only if someone could re-channel all that ingenuity they use to do the devil’s (or as Waconzy puts it “Amosu”), work into doing something more productive, the country will be so much better for it.

I agree, partially. The criminals that engage in the relatively unsophisticated, low level scams such as email phishing, dating/romance scams are of no use to anyone, death to those guys. I’m looking at the more sophisticated criminals that attack the home of the enterprise’s crown jewels – the database.

Hackers attack the databases of businesses in this country everyday, but let me not go off on a tangent. Singer Waconzy celebrated his birthday yesterday and rather than organizing some IG contest telling his followers to record themselves dancing to his new song for some dollars, he did something I didn’t expect. Through his foundation, the singer pledged to give 5 scholarships to the anyone looking to become an Oracle database administrator. He posted this on IG –

Waconzy foundation has pledged to help elevate poverty in Africa by giving out 5 scholarships valued at $3595 each to well deserving Africans.

I know things are really hard out there and life is unbearable for some families, please accept my little donation which is aimed at reducing the level of poverty in our land. Education is key to success ! Education is power ! God bless Africa. #HBDWACONZY #WACONZYFOUNDATION”

Just so we are clear, becoming a database administrator doesn’t mean you’ll be able to protect your database from attacks, the training is foundational and you’ll need to add knowledge of security to go with that. I’m just trying to illustrate the latent potential of ICT that we just tend to overlook, kudos to Waconzy for taking the initiative.

Unfortunately, because Oracle is a Rolls Royce solution, very few businesses can actually afford to deploy an Oracle database. It therefore limits the places where an admin can be employed especially if you do not have the requisite job experience. Therefore, taking up this offer and becoming an Oracle administrator will not make you immediately employable but neither will getting a BSc., MSc. or even a PhD in this economy and that hasn’t stopped anyone from getting one, so give it a try.

Use the #HBDWACONZY on the comment section of his IG page and tell the singer why you feel you deserve the scholarship.